


A Lady Tonight

by cest_what



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-09
Updated: 2010-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-08 19:33:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cest_what/pseuds/cest_what
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of Hogwarts, Ron finds Pansy smoking a cigarette outside the castle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lady Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to [LJ](http://cest-what.livejournal.com/5912.html) September 2007.

The wounded had been taken to St Mungo's and the Death Eaters rounded up and marched off with the aurors. The sounds of people celebrating being alive against the odds, and in a world without Voldemort, filtered past Ron where he hovered in the open double doorway of Hogwarts.

Hagrid was letting loose great sobs of laughter as he crushed Harry against his side. "Ye're a great actor, Harry," he kept saying, scrunching his face around tears.

Harry was coping with the physical affection about as well as he ever did. He smiled weakly up at Hagrid and spent his time looking surreptitiously around for Ginny.

Ron reminded himself that he was probably allowed to kiss her now. Well, if Ron could get some kind of promise that he intended to marry her, anyway. He frowned and made a mental note to collar Harry about that the next time he got him alone.

Hermione was talking to Neville at the Hufflepuff table. Sort of underneath the table, actually, or at least leaning against the bench tucked beneath it. Hermione seemed to be trying to have a conversation about the Sword of Gryffindor, which Neville was turning over in his hands. She couldn't get much out of him other than dazed, lazy smiles, though, as he watched the light catch on the blade.

Seamus and Dean were over there too, Seamus sitting as close to Neville as he could get and shooting him enormous smiles every time Neville looked up. Dean had his eyes closed and his head pillowed on Seamus' ankles, stretching out into the middle of the floor.

Ron could go over to them, or to his family -- a tight, painful knot of familiar love gathered around Molly at the Gryffindor table. Molly had Percy tightly by her side, and seemed determined not to lose this son again, now that she'd lost another. He'd join them later, and be swallowed up in the love, and not come out for weeks, probably.

Now, though, he'd spotted the dark shape of somebody's head, resting against the wall just below the edge of the East Steps down on the far side of the courtyard. He glanced behind him once more, then picked his way down the steps. He wanted to know who would come out here alone when there were people celebrating inside.

She was leaning, loose-limbed and rag doll serene, against the hard stone of the inner wall of the courtyard. She had her head tilted upwards, her eyes slitted but fixed on the pale yellow band of the sky above the darkening horizon. In the dusk, the bright dot of her cigarette was a spark of orange. She turned her head as he came up, the cigarette suspended in one hand.

He stopped, shocked.

"Parkinson."

She tilted her head. "You're standing in your own shadow, but I suppose it's Weasley, yes?" She sounded almost drunk, although he didn't think she was.

He shook his head, trying to assimilate her being there at all. "What on -- what are you _doing_ here? Didn't you go away to be evil somewhere?"

She laughed -- a soft, disbelieving sound. "I always forget how much fun you are."

The surprise was beginning to fade, giving Ron space to get angry. His fingers curled into fists against his legs. "Parkinson, you _left_. McGonagall gave you marching orders. What are you here for?"

She coughed, catching smoke in her hand. "Obviously we came back," she said, looking at him as though it really were obvious. She shook her head. "There was a battle for the fate of the world going on. We weren't going to just slope off home and find out what happened later. Half of us had relatives fighting out here."

She looked over his shoulder, a vague expression settling on her face. "I think most of the others are inside."

Ron frowned. He thought he might have seen a few Slytherins, now that he thought about it. It was all so chaotic in there, it would have been hard to tell.

She was coolly dragging in smoke again, looking over the grounds once more, head tilted to the side. His eyes narrowed.

"You're different from the others, though. I suppose that's why you didn't go inside? None of the other Slytherins stood up and yelled that we should hand Harry over to be murdered, did they?"

He couldn't be sure in the fading light, but he thought she blushed.

"I panicked," she muttered. "I thought we weren't going to be allowed out." She was staring resolutely ahead.

"And of course you had to get out. You couldn't stay and _fight_."

"Oh, come on." She waved a hand, her mouth twisting. "My mother was out there, Weasley. Did you think I was going to stand up and attack her?"

He blinked. "Your ...? Your mother fought for You-Know-Who? I don't remember your mum being arrested after the battle, you know."

She jumped, shooting him a wary glance. "Did I say 'mother'?" She tapped the ash off her cigarette onto the stone bannister behind her. "I meant 'Crup'."

He rolled his eyes, leaning against the wall. "Right."

She didn't say anything else for a while. Ron could see her shoulders slumping a little further down the wall as the minutes passed. It made him uncomfortable. People were either nice or they were nasty. It complicated things when they were also girls being upset. He couldn't cope with girls being upset.

"It's going to be like this forever now, isn't it?" she said eventually, into the silence.

"How's that?" He looked at the bright line of the horizon instead of at Pansy, with her pale face half-hidden behind the dark hair she usually tucked back.

"We're always going to be the losers." She took another drag of the cigarette, coughing a bit. "I'm going to have to learn some new songs. I don't know any 'loser' ones. I have to now, though, because my mother -- she chose the losing side."

"You mean your Crup."

She turned her head, her eyes narrowing. "You're not funny, Weasley."

He shrugged, turning her words over in his mind. "Does that mean that Slytherins sing victory songs down in the dungeons?"

She looked away again. "I could tell you we have dance parties and orgies instead," she said, her voice distant, "but you might actually explode with the embarrassment."

He stared straight ahead, wishing he didn't blush so easily.

"My brother was on the winning side," he said. "He died anyway."

That was as close as he'd come to thinking about Fred's death. If he thought about it more, he'd fall apart again, the way he almost had before.

She looked at him, her expression unreadable. Then she leaned forward and offered him the cigarette.

"Yeah," she said.

He looked at it for a moment, holding it gingerly between two fingers. Then he carefully raised it to his lips and pretended to inhale. The smoke wafted hot and soothing over his mouth, disappearing in the cold air.

She didn't seem to notice that he'd pretended as she took it back. She took one more drag and dropped the butt, grinding it under the heel of her patent leather school shoe.

"Do you want ... you should come inside, you know." He shrugged, awkward. "Everybody's there. Even Malfoy's there."

She regarded him, eyebrows raised. "Weasley, I'd be lynched by your friends." He noticed that her eyes strayed to the golden square of the big double doorway, though.

He grinned. "I'll protect you. I'm a hero, you know."

She didn't quite smile. "You don't like me."

"Well, no."

"Your girlfriend hates me."

He had to stop then, and enjoy the heated, euphoric glow of that word, 'girlfriend', and the memory of Hermione flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him, soft brown hair tickling his neck.

Pansy snorted softly. "I don't even want to know."

He looked at her, shaking the memory away.

"Walk in with me looking like _that_ and she really will murder you." She bit her lip. "Which is incentive enough."

He blinked. She smiled, almost shyly, and prodded his shoulder. "Take me inside, then."

Ron hesitated, then offered his arm. If he was going to pretend that she wasn't evil, he may as well pretend she was a lady, too.

"Come on, then."


End file.
